BEARSCARE

You may have heard rumors about a sleepy bear. Those rumors are true. See it first here!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm5KxM0U4BE]

You know, being me isn’t all fun and games all of the time. Reporting on worldwide zoological events is extremely rewarding and just knowing that we are the most complete, accurate and interesting animal-news website on the net helps me wake up enthused and rested every morning. Some nights I don’t even sleep.

But with great power comes great responsibility, so it is my sad but necessary duty to report that a dolphin has died. Sharky, as he was affectionately known, was mortally wounded during an aerial feat at Sea World, FL. Rest in peace, slippery prince. Rest in peace. You will be remembered always. Below is a tribute to dolphins and I think it’s only appropriate that we all watch it. Gather the family around, or whatever you have in your house/burrow and click the triangle and let yourself be taken away to an underwater paradise.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmZF79wvu8&feature=related]

I guess there’s this baby giraffe in Germany that just started walking. Over-all I have positive feelings about this event. I’m glad when any giraffe learns to walk. Unfortunately the only video is on CNN and, since they’re losers, I can’t embed it. So, until I can get footage of Katja, here’s a sweet ice cream cone being eaten by an even sweeter giraffe!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRwzkxgG8yU]

These bad boys live on the island of Komodo in Indonesia. They are the largest of the monitor lizards and were discovered in 1910 by Western scientists. The Komodo Dragon is thought to be so huge because there are no other predators on the island and so they can eat whatever they want with absolutely no consequences. If you want to know more, check out Wikipedia or just peep out the video below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8oJK0T5NJw]

It’s a rare day when a grizzly bear attack is national news. Today is one of those rare days. A bear, called Rocky, who appeared in Will Ferrel’s timeless classic, Semi-Pro, bit his trainer on the neck. As you might guess, a grizzly bite to the neck is tough thing to walk off and Stephan Miller probably died on the spot. This happened in Big Bear Lake, CA.

The authorities have not decided what to do with Rocky. While my condolences go out to the Miller family, I feel strongly that the bear should be set free. Or at least not killed. Rocky really didn’t know any better and no grizzly bear should be punished for being a grizzly bear. If you devote your life to training some of the most dangerous animals in the world, you must accept the risk that those animals could kill you. Irwin died doing what he loved and I can only hope that Mr. Miller really loved bears–because, well, I hope he loved them. Below is a picture of Rocky. That is all.

I REALLY love this commercial.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1NkRaU-5xw]

If I didn’t already have free long distance and free nights and weekends on my cell phone, I might consider getting Comcast Digital Voice. But probably not.

OK, everybody, it’s time for a break. I’ve been covering relevant animal news now for some time and have been helping all of you to the tune of 3000 hits (that’s enormous in internet terms) since the site’s creation a way back who knows when. Would you believe the only animal news on CNN today is this stupid video featuring a dog and a sheep? That’s BORING. So, on this Sunday evening, I’m going to tell you about my cat, Skittles. Well, our cat. Here’s the story.

My fiancee and I had been itching to get a pet. We already have some fish. The biggest fish is Amadeus. When we got him, we also had three others: Punky Brewster, Lucius Tertius and Jimmy Tango. However, Amadeus systematically killed off his tank mates. First went Lucius, then Punky and finally Jimmy. It turns out that Amadeus had been pregnant, though, and he was just making room for his son, Hush Puppy who’s a happy, healthy fry right now. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is fish don’t make loyal companions.

Another bit of important tid-bit of background is that my apartment building, a high-rise in Crystal City (Arlington, VA) is beginning to fall apart. Knowing this, management sold it to Bainbridge Companies, which is definitely the sorriest property management company ever. Just ask Catherine (who’s in the property management business). Well, we found out that Bainbridge was allowing animals in the building when we heard a dog barking upstairs. A couple days later we were at Petsmart perusing the cats. Here’s a picture of Skittles in her cage.

Some time back we had decided that “Skittles” would be a great name for a cat, especially if it was a really mean cat. We named this cat Skittles but she turned out just to be stupid. A stupid cat? Yes. Skittles is pretty dense. She’s extremely clumsy, more interested in tin foil and Catherine’s hair than very realistic rabbit’s fur mice and she doesn’t bury her treasures in the litter box.

Actually, the litter box situation is pretty funny. See, Skittles LOVES to eat. She eats all the time and throws a fit if her bowl is empty. And with all that food she produces a lot of waste. Cleaning litter boxes doesn’t bother me at all. Even scooping Skittle’s box daily would have been fine, but daily isn’t enough with this cat. Since she doesn’t bury, a fresh box is only fresh until she uses it, which is very, very frequently. It was getting to the point where my entire apartment smelled like her litterbox everyday when I came home from work. We got the Littermaid to clean up after her for each visit to the box just so the apartment would be tolerable.

Here’s Skittles inside her food bag, eating, because she finished off her bowl.

Unusual traits aside, Skittles is a really great cat. I think we’re going to get her a buddy, though, and name him Kringle. Kringle will probably be a Siamese.

So, these two high school kids were driving to school one day (in Oregon) and saw this kangaroo-hamster looking thing in the road. Since they weren’t murderers, the stopped the car to peep it out rather than just running it over like some other Oregonians might. It turns out the beast was a cavy–a large Argentinian rodent. It’s actually really sweet. They want to keep it, but it’s probably somebody’s pet. Also, they don’t know what it eats (have you kids ever heard of google?). Anyways, here’s a link to the video on CNN. As soon as this is available to embed, I will.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2008/04/16/dnt.weird.animal.kgw

Remember some months ago when they de-throned Pluto from planet-hood? Remember how everybody complained? That really irritated me. Pluto isn’t, and never was, a planet. Pluto is a sham. Well, today I was listening to the Kojo Nnamdi Show* on my favorite public radio station and they were talking about the moons of Saturn and somehow they brought up “poor, old Pluto”. Poor Pluto? This has GOT to stop. Pluto is a biggish, cold rock and has no business orbiting OUR Sun.

I say we blow the blasted thing up. Let’s just fire a few ICBMs at it and be done with it. No more discussion. No more “but Pluto is a planet too”. We can just be free to live our lives in peace without having to worry about that con-rock. I blame Clyde Tombaugh. He invented that planet and the myth of the cute, lonely little planet that made kids so upset when real astronomers realized it wasn’t a planet at all.

You know what else? We don’t even have decent pictures of Pluto. Look at this one from Wikipedia:

Are you kidding me? And I bet if we don’t get rid of Pluto, some day its orbit will change to a collision course with Earth. Pluto is just an asteroid. Asteroids kill–that’s their purpose and Pluto is no different.

*It wasn’t actually Kojo doing the show. I don’t know where he was or what his problem is, but it was some other guy filling in for him.

This is pretty great and the only thing I don’t like about it is that it didn’t happen to me. Some dude was just blazing down the road (in Texas) when he peeped a sweet alligator on the side of the road. Homeboy then somehow places that alligator in the back seat of his car and sets off to find it a new home. I guess he got pulled over for speeding or something (I really wasn’t paying attention when watching until the alligator showed up) and the cops found the ancient reptile* in the car and filmed it. Pretty nuts hard if you ask me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TekZjhIKRk]

*This alligator is probably fairly young. I only meant that alligators/crocodiles are pretty old. I mean those puppies were around when dinosaurs ruled the Earth instead of us humans. Sharks are pretty old too. Mosquitoes too (remember Jurassic Park?).